By Débora Rey and Patricia Luna -
The Associated Press
Hebe de Bonafini, the woman who did not give in to the pain of the disappearance of her children during the last Argentine military dictatorship and became one of the most emblematic fighters for human rights, died on Sunday in Argentina.
She was 93 years old.
De Bonafini, mother of two disappeared children, historical defender and human rights activist, was one of the main faces of the Argentine association known throughout the world for the search for children donated to other families during the Argentine dictatorship.
The death was confirmed by his daughter Alejandra Bonafini who thanked the expressions of affection received while she was hospitalized in recent days at the Italian Hospital in the city of the Buenos Aires province of La Plata.
Hebe de Bonafini, the president of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, in Buenos Aires, on August 11, 2016. Jorge Saenz / AP
"As a family we have the need to mourn the Mother of Plaza de Mayo, Hebe, in privacy" so on Monday it will be reported what the spaces for tribute and reminders will be, the statement said.
"We will continue to find Hebe in the Plaza and in the town's struggles!" Her daughter concluded.
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The activist suffered from complications derived from chronic diseases that in recent weeks worsened
considerably, explained the Minister of Health of Buenos Aires, Nicolás Kreplak.
The HIJOS group convened this Sunday afternoon to say a last goodbye to De Bonafini in Plaza de Mayo, through the emblematic rounds of the Mothers.
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Dearest Hebe "world symbol of the fight for Human Rights, pride of Argentina" simply thank you and goodbye, Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said goodbye in a personal tribute on her Twitter account.
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De Bonafini was a well-known Kirchner supporter and a well-known political figure in Argentina.
The Argentine government decreed three days of national mourning and said in a statement that it "says goodbye with deep pain and respect" to what is considered a tireless fighter for human rights.
"The Argentine government and people find in her an international symbol of the search for memory, truth and justice for the thirty thousand disappeared," she continued.
As founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, "she shed light in the dark night of the military dictatorship" (1976-1983), she added.
De Bonafini "confronted the genocidal when collective common sense went in another direction," demanding truth and justice together with the Mothers and Grandmothers, the president, Alberto Fernández, tweeted.
“It is with great love and sincere regret that I send her away,” he added.
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Hebe María Pastor de Bonafini was one of the founders of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Association in 1977, two years after the military coup that put into practice the most ferocious repressive apparatus against dissidents in South America.
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Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo is one of the two organizations into which the original group split.
As president of the organization from 1979 until her death, De Bonafini first
fought for the appearance alive of two of her missing children
and for the trial and punishment of the military, before becoming involved in other political and social causes.
Received by more than a dozen presidents and recognized throughout the world, the activist became a controversial figure due to her radical positions against the United States, her full adherence to the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández and at the end of her life for a corruption scandal that involved the program for the construction of social housing of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo Foundation.
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De Bonafini was born in 1928 in the town of Ensenada, in the province of Buenos Aires.
At the age of 18, she married Humberto Alfredo Bonafini, a neighbor of the neighborhood, with whom she had three children: Jorge, Raúl and Alejandra.
A housewife, with barely completed primary school, everyone knew her as Kika Pastor until members of the armed forces kidnapped her eldest son in February 1977. From that “moment that my son disappeared, I became Hebe de Bonafini, That's what I am now, a mother," she said in one of her last interviews.
De Bonafini's children were militants from left-wing organizations, one of them was even in "the armed struggle," according to their mother, who admitted that she knew of their political activity.
At the end of 1977 Raúl disappeared.
Like other mothers, De Bonafini
abandoned the routine of the home and went looking for her children.
While visiting hospitals, courts, police stations, barracks and morgues, she began to come across other women with the same face of pain.
Given the lack of answers, they agreed to meet on Saturday, April 30, 1977 in the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the government house, and march for the appearance of their children.
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As the state of siege was in force at that time, whereby meetings of more than three people were prohibited as they were potentially subversive, they began to walk around the Pirámide de Mayo, in the center of the square, in an anti-clockwise direction. of the clock.
They met in the same place the following Thursday and since then the march has been repeated every Thursday.
The original group of mothers participated in a massive pilgrimage to the Virgin of Luján in October 1977 and to recognize each other they agreed to put their children's cloth diapers on their heads, which in time would become the distinctive feature of the organization.
To intimidate the women, the military kidnapped and assassinated Azucena Villaflor, the first president of the Madres.
But her wrestling companions did not stop searching for her children and further strengthened her ties.
In the midst of the worst censorship, they wrote on bills the names of their children who had been kidnapped by the army.
They bought with them at the fair so that they began to circulate and their drama was known.
When the police took a detainee away, everyone else would show up at the police station and ask to be arrested.
When they demanded the document from one of them in a march, all the others took out theirs.
With so many documents to verify by the police, they took advantage and stayed longer in the square.
“30 years ago
we did not imagine that the dictatorship would be so murderous
, perverse and criminal.
That is why I want to talk to you about them, about the brilliant, happy, guerrilla, literacy, incredible, revolutionary, convinced children,” De Bonafini said when celebrating the 30th anniversary of the creation of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.
"I heard when he triggered the gun."
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“We are convinced that they are in the crowd.
Nobody goes forever.
We are his voice, his look, his heart, his breath.
We defeated death, dear children”.
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
denounced that 30,000 dissidents disappeared during the dictatorship
.
Official figures cut that figure in half.
De Bonafini, like other members of the organization, never wanted to search for the remains of her children.
Neither did she participate in investigative commissions that served to condemn the repressors after the return of democracy in 1983, nor did she receive compensation from the State.
After the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, De Bonafini launched one of his most controversial statements: “When the attack happened and I was in Cuba visiting my daughter, I felt joy.
I am not going to be a hypocrite, she did not hurt me at all ”.
De Bonafini harshly questioned the successive democratic governments until in 2003 she was received for the first time at the government house by the president-elect Néstor Kirchner, who would later promote the repeal of the amnesty and pardon laws that protected those accused of crimes of It hurts humanity.
The activist became a staunch defender of Kirchner and his wife and successor Cristina Fernández and their policies.
In the midst of a fight with Grupo Clarín, the most powerful media conglomerate in the country, De Bonafini organized a mock public and popular trial in the Plaza de Mayo against journalists critical of the government and in front of the courts threatened to "take" the building if The Supreme Court of Justice did not endorse a law on audiovisual media promoted by Kirchnerism.
This closeness to political power earned him harsh questions and a fight with other human rights organizations.
In 2011 De Bonafini was accused of irregularities in the management of public funds destined for a social housing construction program of the Madres Plaza de Mayo Foundation.
The figure of the activist was stained by the scandal that has not yet been resolved in court.